Attalla – Glacial Rule (Review)

Sometimes you just get a craving for some rocking, riff-focused stoner/sludge metal, and for times like that the new Attalla album Glacial Rule is quite the tonic.

The album features 6 songs, but most are on the lengthier side so there’s a good 40 minutes of music here. This is a decent duration for an album and allows most bands to say what they want and then finish on a high before outstaying their welcome in some way.

I like the longer song lengths as they allow the band to lock into a good groove or a solid jam, seeing where it takes them before reeling things in again to keep the songs cohesive. As mentioned above, this is a riff-focused album. The songs are essentially riffs, riffs and more riffs, most with a sludgy, stoner vibe.

The guitars are big, have a decent fuzzy edge to them and are steeped in stoner/doom metal lore. They kind of dominate the music, which is not to say the singer or the other instruments are superfluous, of course, but everything else seems to be included merely to back up the heavy riffs. The drums have a nice sound too.

The singer has a good voice for this kind of thing. Clear and strong, but without distracting from the huge dirty guitars, his performance is set at just the right level for the songs.

I very much enjoyed this. Attalla bring the riffs, and you won’t ever want them to leave.